


The Forest of the Dauphin

by I_have_only_my_dreams



Category: La Belle et la Bête | Beauty and the Beast (Fairy Tale)
Genre: F/M, Fairy Tale Retellings, Historical References
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-30
Updated: 2019-08-16
Packaged: 2020-05-31 02:26:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,948
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19416583
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/I_have_only_my_dreams/pseuds/I_have_only_my_dreams
Summary: Isabelle Fletcher, newly graduated with her bachelor's degree in history and French language, is on a trip through France with her father when she finds out about a mysterious haunted forest and the ruined castle supposedly within. A Prince was poisoned there, or so the story goes... However, both she and her father find much more than they bargained for, and find themselves quite literally bargaining for their lives.





	1. Tournon-sur-Rhône

Once upon a time, perhaps not so long ago, there grew a mysterious forest in the southeast of France. No one had ever really been able to measure it - though you could ride around it, you could never cross through it and come out safe on the other side. Indeed, you could not come out at all. More people than anyone remembered had been lost in that forest over the years. People called it Le Forêt du Dauphin; rumor had it that it had once been the hunting grounds of the crown prince of France. But the kings and princes were long gone now, their heads fallen from their shoulders, their blood spilled in the streets; and new men ruled in France. They sent surveyors and map makers throughout their republic. Only the forest remained unmapped, unsurveyed, and unremarked. Ages passed; satellites could not penetrate the tree cover to reveal what lay within, and GPS mysteriously failed within miles of the place. Roads diverted around it; they called it a "national preserve," and under that title it remained untouched and untouchable, the last blank space on the map where a man might write "here there be monsters." 

* * * 

"Belle. Belle. Isabelle!"  
Belle's head snapped up out of her book.  
"Yes, dad?"  
Her father shot her an often-used glance that was part exasperation, part fondness.  
"Belle, look out of the window."  
She looked.  
"That is France out there. We are literally in a foreign country. A foreign country to which we came, may I remind you, because you wanted to practice your French."  
She grimaced slightly at the charming scene outside their B&B window: cobblestone streets, window boxes filled with flowers, the occasional tiny car or bicycle passing by, the groups of people chattering away in a language she had spent four years of college determined to master.  
"I know, dad."  
"So why is your nose stuck inside a book?"  
"Well, first of all, it's in French, so it's not like I'm not practicing."  
He raised a skeptical grey eyebrow.  
"And," she hurried on, "it's so fascinating! It's a book of local legends and superstitions, that kind of thing. Did you know there's a forest not five miles away that's supposedly haunted? They call it the Dauphin's forest because it was apparently the hunting grounds of the Prince way back in medieval times. And get this, dad: there's historical evidence that there used to be a château in the middle of it. Like, an actual medieval mansion that he used to house his whole retinue when he went hunting. Can you imagine? A ruined château in the middle of a haunted forest? Doesn't that just make you want to go look for it?"  
"I'd be more interested in knowing why it's haunted," her father replied dryly.  
"It doesn't really say. There's just all kinds of stories of people going missing there. Apparently it's a kind of Bermuda Triangle of forests. Oh, and guess what? The Dauphin Francis, son of Francis the First, was supposedly poisoned and died in that château! They blamed his secretary, Count Sebastiano, and he was executed for it, but now people think the prince probably just died of pneumonia. He had been imprisoned as a child…"  
Her nose vanished back into the book, and her father sighed, though the wrinkles around his eyes deepened slightly.  
"Put the book down, Belle, and let's go find this haunted mansion of yours."  
Belle stared up at him.  
"Seriously?"  
"Instead of sitting indoors on a glorious summer day in the French countryside? Yes, seriously."  
She laughed, bit her lip, looked out of the window and then back at the book in her hands.  
"Do you think I'm weird for preferring a ruined castle to…" she waved a hand vaguely at the charming scene outside, encompassing the flower boxes, bicycles, hum of conversations at cafés with striped awnings…"all of that?"  
He let his hand rest on her shoulder for a brief moment.  
"Belle, you're my daughter. Of course you're weird."  
They shared a chuckle.  
"Anyway, there's nothing wrong with being unlike most people. You're a history major, darling. You have every right to be more interested in the past than the present. And, you know, that history happens to be waiting for you right outside this door."  
"I know."  
"So? What do you say? Ready to go meet history?"   
Belle took a deep breath, closed the book, and stood up. The light through the window cast a golden glow on her brown, unruly curls. For a moment she stood silhouetted against the brightness, a woman's figure in a summer dress with a book clasped to her heart. Then she moved to set it down, and the dust motes stirred languidly in the sun-brightened air.  
"I'm ready when you are," she said. 

* * *


	2. The Forest

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Isabelle Fletcher, newly graduated with her bachelor's degree in history and French language, is on a trip through France with her father when she finds out about a mysterious haunted forest and the ruined castle supposedly within. A Prince was poisoned there, or so the story goes... However, both she and her father find much more than they bargained for, and find themselves quite literally bargaining for their lives.

"I'm so glad you made me leave the B&B," Belle admitted as she took deep breaths of the forest air. The scent of green mingled with musty undertones of soil and long-dead leaves, but something else threaded through - something sweet, fragrant, drawn out by the warmth of the sun filtering through the trees.  
"Are those roses I smell?" she asked her father.  
"Roses? Where?" His eyes lit up in anticipation.  
"I think - this way?" Belle took the lead with a little more haste in her stride, though she could not keep herself from marveling at the vast trunks of the trees around them. The forest had clearly been left untouched for centuries, and there were no signs of fire or other major disasters. The underbrush was thick, moss carpeted nearly everything in sight. Birds called and rustled overhead and from all sides.  
It was like stepping into the place that all forests dream of.  
"Do you realize what it means that there are roses here?" her father asked, passing her with the determined posture of a pointer dog.  
"Cultivated gardens? Signs of former habitation? Possible leads to the -"  
"- haunted chateau?" they finished in unison.  
Belle laughed, but her father had frozen in his tracks in front of her, suddenly silent. Frowning, she peered over his shoulder, and her mouth fell open.  
"Oh."  
"These - these are not wild roses, Belle," her father observed, in a voice of studied calm.  
"I should say not," she breathed.  
The air was filled with the scent of them - a light, refreshing sweetness, not cloying, but still nearly overwhelming. And that was no wonder, for what the girl and her father faced was nearly unbelievable - a solid wall of roses, extending to either side as far as they could see, climbing up above their heads.  
But it was not merely the size or the length of this rose hedge that had stopped them both in their tracks.  
"How is that even possible?" Belle asked. "Are those - how many rosebushes are there?"  
Her father advanced, a hobbyist's passion kindling in his eyes.  
"That can't be more than one bush. Look, these two roses are on the same branch, and there's no sign of grafting at all. In any case, it would be practically impossible to graft this many different plants together - this is unbelievable, Belle! I have never in my life heard of anything like this!"  
"Could it be some medieval technique we've lost over the centuries?" Belle asked, approaching more slowly. She stared down the length of the impossible wall of roses, trying to count - white, and red, and pink, and yellow, and red so dark it seemed black, and every shade of rose, and red so bright it seemed orange, and cream shading to yellow and then to light pink - and could that be blue? surely not!  
"Absolutely fascinating," she heard her father murmur behind her, and the snap of a stem told her that he had picked a rose. 

The roar came without warning, deafening, rumbling through the earth and into her very bones, drowning out everything else, so sudden that Belle's heart seemed to stop and she could only stand, shaking, frozen in place. Not until it ended, trailing away like the echo of distant thunder, could she find the wits to think of what it meant.  
"Oh God, there's wild animals here! Let's go, dad!"  
She looked behind her, but there was nothing and no one there.  
"Dad?"  
She turned, then turned again.  
"Dad? How far did you go?"  
Silence. The trembling, which had never quite stopped, grew worse, forcing her to wrap her arms around herself.  
"Dad!" she screamed into the silence, and turned again - 

A figure stood there, hooded and dark, looming over her. Her voice choked to a stop in her throat, and for a moment she swayed forward as if she might faint. The figure made no move. Its stillness was unnatural, the darkness under its hood revealing nothing. Though the sunlight fell on and around its massive frame, the figure seemed as dark as if it stood in absolute shadow.  
Belle mirrored its stillness, arms wrapped around herself, glowing almost golden in her bright sundress and disheveled curls.  
The scent of roses was almost overpowering.  
"Where is my father?" Belle whispered. "Did you take him?"  
"He picked a rose," said the figure, in a voice as deep and cold as a stone.  
"You - you took him for stealing a rose?"  
The figure did not move.  
"Did you kill him?" Her voice was a thread of fear.  
"He lives."  
"Then let him go! Let him go, give him back!"  
"He has taken a rose. He must remain."  
Belle stared into the darkness of that hood. Was there a gleam of eyes?  
"What kind of punishment is that? You can't imprison people just for picking roses!"  
"He must remain."  
"For how long?"  
Silence.  
"For - for the rest of his life?"  
"Yes. In a manner of speaking."  
The voice seemed gruffer now, less cold. Belle stepped forward impulsively.  
"Take me instead."  
The figure stepped back, gave a fraction of ground.  
"Why?  
"A life for a rose, that's the rule, right? Your rule? So take me instead."  
The figure's head moved slightly.  
"You have lived very few years. He is old."  
"He's my father! I wouldn't even be alive if he - " Her voice broke. She stepped forward again, and again, the figure gave way.  
"Is there any rule that says you cannot take me instead?"  
The figure seemed to hesitate.  
"No one has ever remained here freely."  
"Is there a rule?" she repeated, emphatically.  
A moment.  
"No."  
"Then take me instead. Let him go." Belle took a deep breath and looked into the faint gleam of eyes beneath the hood.  
"Please." 

"If you remain," the figure said almost reluctantly, "you can never return. You can have no life outside these walls."  
"I understand," she said, and her voice did not tremble.  
The figure reached towards her, and Belle looked down, barely recoiling at the sight of a massive furred paw, its claws long and thick, like that of a bear. It wrapped around her hand with surprising gentleness, lifting it towards the rose hedge. Then, almost too swift for thought, it brought her finger against the rosebush. Belle gasped as a thorn pricked her finger, drawing blood.  
"It is done," said the figure. "Your father is free."  
Belle looked over her shoulder, and indeed, there stood her father, bewildered, holding a gloriously crimson rose in his hands.  
"Belle!" he cried, turning wildly from side to side.  
"Dad," Belle murmured, but her knees were giving way, and she wavered, about to fall.  
More quickly than thought, the figure caught her in its arms, lifting her effortlessly away from the ground. 

The last thing Belle saw before the darkness closed in was her father, lost, looking frantically for his child.


End file.
